


A man of many hats

by Littlenerdyotaku



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016), Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Canon Rewrite, Case Fic, Crossover, M/M, Magic, Not Canon Compliant, Pararibulitis (Dirk Gently), Post-Season/Series 01, how to (not) sneak on a plane, witch!amanda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-05-01 21:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19185559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlenerdyotaku/pseuds/Littlenerdyotaku
Summary: "find the boy".What if the boy was a different boy? What if it was not a boy at all, but the Antichrist?Dirk wakes up in the backseat of a black Bentley, Anathema hits the wrong thing with her bike, and - are those prophecies, Amanda?Abandoned





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, the characters nor the settings don't belong to me, but to Netflix. Good Omens, the characters and the settings belong to Amazon Prime, Neil Gaiman and sir Terry Prachett.  
> A headstart: I'm not just cutting random pieces out of the story. This fanfic only shows the scenes, however subtly, influenced by having Dirk Gently and co inserted into them

Dirk wakes up on what is, perhaps, the most uncomfortable, and yet, somehow, posh sofa he has ever had the misfortune of sleeping on. Rubbing his eyes, he notices is that it is not a sofa at all, but a car seat, instead. The second thing he notes, is that the person at the front has noticed him, as well.  
The person is a red-headed man of seemingly thirty, though something in Dirk tells him he is much, much older; ancient, even. He was also wearing black, tubic sunglasses, despite it being sometime in the early morning - six or seven, but maybe five forty three? Dirk's inner clock has needed tuning for a while now - and it is, at any rate, a very cloudy day overall.  
The man turns the wheel so sharply Dirk fears it might just keep going and roll over - he did not lock his seatbelt, so that would be a most unfavorable outcome - before the man points a long, slim finger in an extravagantly dramatic motion, that would have been quite amusing to watch has it been anyone else.  
Dirk considers that, perhaps, he has more urgent things to worry about then crushing his own skull. Like this man crushing his skull.  
"Who the hell are you?" The man snarls, his lips pulling back momentarily, exposing canines unnervingly longer than the norm.  
"Dirk - Dirk Gently?" He replies, the words coming out less answer than question. This man looks about ready to bite his head off, and has the proper tools to do so, and the overall situation is just so bizarre Dirk has to wonder if, maybe, he had switched places with someone during his sleep. Then he might not, actually, be Dirk Gently after all.  
But he did want to live.  
"Please don't eat me," pleads Dirk. "Wait, I meant kill me – no, I meant DON'T kill me. But please don't eat me either," he panics, his voice coming out in long, dragging bundles that end with a semicolon rather than a period.  
The man stares at him, gobsmacked at the speed of his speech.  
"I didn't mean to crash your car, it just sort of happened." He adds quickly, since it seems the man was not going to kill him while he rambles on incoherently - too busy trying to process his words and what not, he supposed. "It's quite a funny story, actually. You see, my friend Mona -"  
"Just - just get the fuck out of my car." The man snarls, before readjusting his perfectly balanced sunglasses.  
"And I better not find any shoeprints on the leather - or you'll have hell to pay."  
As Dirk hurriedly scrambles out of the tiny door - what kind of idiot makes car doors so narrow a grown man has to squeeze himself out? And more importantly, what kind of idiot buys them? - he thinks he hears the man chuckle to himself, "hell to pay".

It takes Crowley about seven minutes of driving to realize that he probably shouldn't have let a person who had randomly materialized inside his car simply walk away.

Dirk walks for what feels like hours to his malnourished body, but is probably just a few minutes, before a bike and a person he assumes to be their owner - though, the owner was riding the bike, so maybe just the bike - crash into his side and send him tumbling backwards.  
"Ow!" He yelps, grabbing at his side. The girl carefully leans her bike to the side of the road before crouching next to him.  
She's wearing a dark, puffy-sleeved dress, whose pattern and texture might have hinted at the possibility of being a repurposed rug, had it not been so hideous no one in their right mind would ever use it TWICE.  
"Nice dress", he tries.  
The girl just shrugs before slapping his side. He yelps again. "What was that for?"  
"I'm making sure you didn't break anything," she calmly explains. "You seem to be doing fine, though."  
"Fine? You hit me! Twice!" Dirk hisses. He would have loved to finish it off with a proper stomp, but as he was currently laying on the ground, it was impossible.  
"Well, I already said I'm sorry," she retorts.  
"Did not."  
"Did too."

The girl's name was Anathema, and she was actually quite decent, even if her taste in home decor and general fashion sense was quite lacking.  
Scary monster sketch right next to the entrance? Everyone with a bit of sense in their right minds knows those belong in the kitchen. And the frankly, astonishing number of boxes in the apartment did little to help the overall sense of a loving home slash sacrifice in the middle of a satanic ritual.  
"Sorry for the mess, I officially finished moving in a few hours ago." Well, that explains it.  
"Not to sound like an idiot, but where am I?"  
"Tadfield. Weren't you driven here by that Bentley?" She stares, exasperated. Dirk supposed that did look quite sketchy, if you thought about it that way.  
"Not - not exactly," he fidgets with his jacket. "But this - Toad-field - " "Tadfield", she corrects, "where is it, exactly?"  
"East, I think. It depends on where you're coming from, though. Might as well be south, I suppose". She shrugs.  
"No, I meant - are we in America?"  
"This is England."  
Oh dear.  
"Now that I think about it, I don't even know your name," she says, eyeing him behind the brim of her glasses, with just the appropriate amount of suspicion (which is quite a lot, he has to admit).  
"Dirk Gently," he says, reaching for a card, before realizing he was still wearing his Blackwing jacket. Probably made him look quite alien, didn't it? And it lacked the wonderful diversion technique that was hundreds of square cardboard pieces flying through the air.  
"Anathema Device," she holds out her hand, after establishing that he was not going to find his business card. "You seem like you could use a shower."  
...  
Anathema can't find her practical clothes - (which, at this point, after boxes and boxes of vintage dresses from all eras imaginable, Dirk doubts even exist) so she gives him her simplest, black and short - even if laced at the bottom - and a pair of jeans that have tiny red flowers on the cuff.  
He looks quite fetching, he decides. Sort of Midwestern housewife meets Mary Shelley.  
...  
"So your great great great -" Dirk feels like maybe that's enough greats, as no one remembers anyone other than the first, anyway. "grandma, somehow knew you were going to ride into me, over a hundred years before bicycles were even invented?"  
"Not somehow," corrects Anathema. "She was a witch."  
"like, 'turning people into frogs and poisoning entire villages' kind of witch?"  
"More like the "curing smallpox and helping women give birth without dying' type, but she could probably do that as well."  
"And everything she wrote came true?"  
Anathema gave a small nod. "Everything. Down to the color of Petunias the next-door neighbors raised when I was three and the name of my first-grade history teacher.  
She couldn't separate between prophecies that were important and ones that weren't, so she wrote them all down in her book. There are thousands. I know them all by heart". She said, sounding rather proud. Dirk thought it was more on the sad side of things.  
"And our meeting, was it one of the important ones, or the not?"  
"Important, hopefully. Because the end of the world is right around the corner, and I could use some help."  
...  
"So no more pizza". Concludes Dirk. "And no more cases, and no more jackets, and no more dogs in funny hats".  
"And no more cat videos, or card games, or sewing machines", adds Anathema.  
They have been playing this game for quite some time now, each sentiment wilder and more ridiculous than the last.  
It started off with Todd and Farah, and for Anathema - books and hot baths.  
It had regressed to blue cars and lemon trees, rainbows and bubble tea. At some point the banter had just turned into a competition, where no one knew the rules and the only prize was hours worth of melancholy.  
"Well, I'm not going to just sit here while some rando tries to take away my hot chocolate," declares Anathema at last, dusting off her blue carpet dress.  
The voice inside Dirk nods its silent agreement. "The universe sent me here for a reason," he says out loud. "And it was not to cry about jackets - I could do that in Blackwing just as well".  
He and Anathema exchange smiles, despite her lack of understanding at everything he had just said.  
It's easier to say he's a detective who spent an unfortunate amount of time in jail, and let her draw her own conclusions, instead of rambling on about the logistics of being a holistic detective.  
Her conclusions would probably be much more flattering, either way.  
(Perhaps she would think he was an occultist like her, or a devoted believer of an highly exclusive cult (he tried that out, once. Lasted four hours, that Dirk still considers to be some of the worst in his life).  
On the other hand, Anathema did tell him about her witch grandma. That must have took her more than a bit if courage, what with the risk of sounding insane and all that.  
Once they find the beast, he will tell her the truth, he decides.  
But for now, he grabs the offered hand and fixes the dress around himself to appear manlier. (Or, well, as manly as one could get while wearing a laced black mini)  
"Let's go find ourselves a dog."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finished Good omens two days ago and fell in love. Felt like this crossover was exactly the thing my soul needed.  
> I wanted to include more pining in this chapter, but I was simply too gay for anathema to write Dirk and Todd being gay for each other.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which something strange happens to Amanda, Dirk is accused of being a witch and then of having no sense of style, Aziraphale can't properly express his worry and Crowley pines.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything i know about the occult, pendulum use and Wicca (I decided to make Anathema follow Wiccan practices with some of my own twists) I learned online. If you find anything offensive, don't hesitate to tell me and i will change it.

Pictures dance in Amanda's mind like some kind of a hellish PowerPoint. A clown's crying face. A yellow jacket that's been ripped in half. A single, black feather. A giant beast. A tiny dog. A flash of colors and a long, screeching sound.

A pastoral riverbank and an achingly familiar worried face. "You okay, boss?"

Amanda doesn't know what to answer.

...

"If you hate the dress so much, why don't you take it off? It's not like you have nothing else to wear."

Dirk, who was currently fighting a bush over hold of the dress, gives it a final angry tug before turning to face Anathema.

"They're not my clothes. It was - I was just burrowing them. I don't even like them very much", he says, and bends again to tie the edges of the dress around his waist like a hoodie. There's a strong ripping sound as he straightens, the starchy cloth struggling to cover his frame with the new complications.

Anathema sighs. She liked that dress.

"Why did you burrow it, then?"

As Dirk struggles for an answer, she takes out her bronze pendulum - she had originally wanted to use the golden one for maximum accuracy, but it was still buried deep somewhere between her extra leggings, and she felt that if she were to open one more box, her hands would quite literally fall off - and starts waving it above her pocket copy of "The nice and accurate prophecies of Agnes Nutter" (which is to say, the soft cover, mostly foldable version. There are not many things 'pocket' about the size of this journal).

The pendulum is supposed to still above the area of the beast's current whereabouts, or the general are where it takes shelter.

Instead, as if made to annoy her personally, it swings in yet another perfect circle.

To her right, Dirk is babbling a hundred miles an hour. "Perhaps the beast is a giant snake, and it's crawling all around us in a sort of live wall, uh, border-thing!".

The pendulum gives a twitch, as if disapproving. Anathema leans to inspect the tiny sphere, but it is already back to circling the map. While she might just be imagining things, it seems to be swinging in circles just a bit wider than previously.

…" Maybe it's so big that it has to live underground in order not to be discovered. Poor thing, must be very sought after".

"The pendulum is broken, Dirk". Says Anathema, slowly swinging it in the other direction. It swings in a single wide circle and slumps.

"May I have a go?" Asks Dirk, already outstretching his hand.

"Err, sure". Anathema hands him the pendulum, chain first. It IS broken, after all.

Dirk starts shaking it so vigorously Anathema fears the sphere might just pop off the necklace - the clasp looks dangerously close to falling apart - before she realizes Dirk has stopped jerking it, and the pendulum itself is swinging wildly in one direction, rising so high while the subsequent fall is so shallow in comparison, that it should be physically impossible - it is magic, of course, so none of it should be physically possible (and if it were, that meant it was most likely botched).

When Dirk tries to yank it again, it just swings right back.

"I think the thingy wants us to go this - "

"Are you a witch?" Anathema interrupts.

That was the best pendulum usage she had seen in years – if a bit untraditional, but the end justifies the means.

In fact, it was second only to her mom, the best witch she has ever known (and she had met about thirty.) (the Nutter descendants were not big on protection, something to do with a particularly nasty prophecy).

Perhaps it was beginners' luck; but while Anathema Device believes in many things - prophecies, magic, the power of a healthy meal - luck is one thing she does not care for.

"Absolutely not. I am not – a witch, you say?"

Dirk interrupts himself mid-sentence, clearly having had prepared a speech for the way he thought the conversation was heading, that did not fit the direction it actually was.

Dirk seemed to have a speech prepared for everything, though.

"A medium, then? You seemed, uh, well-versed with the pendulum".

"I thought witches were only females", the pendulum is still insistently pointing. Anathema closes her book with a thump, reaching for it. When it leaves Dirk's hands, it slows down in what could only be described as disappointment. Anathema shoots it a sour look. It was HER pendulum, and it better start acting like it.

"It's just a job description," she voices instead. "Like nurse, or housekeeper".

"Well, I am neither", Dirk turns, and the sleeve rips from elbow to shoulder.

...

"Did the office upstairs send you anyone -" he pauses, contemplating a few colorful choice words before settling on " _new_ , lately?" Crowley asks, his grip on the wheel just a bit tighter than strictly necessary.

Crowley liked to think he was a man of little surprises, seeing as his job was making people abandon things they dedicated their whole lives to (usually for their complete opposites), in addition to inspiring dangerous, ungodly ideas in humanity's head and, occasionally, perform what could only be described as a miracle.

(It was worth noting, though, that the last bit wasn't actually in his official job description; more like the shady, borderline criminal side jobs every middle-to-low-income American college student seemed to have.) (In fact, Crowley knew next to nothing about American public education. He didn't like the food, and the culture was mostly stolen either way. He picked up what little he knew from reality TV shows and Netflix's Good Place).

(Canada, on the other hand, was a lovely little place, so Crowley tended to avoid it even more)

The point being, he had quite literally seen it all.

A Buddhist monk whose bed was not as secluded as required, a Catholic priest that did not limit his wine consumption to masses, A nun that had a little too much fun with the Internet: Those were things Crowley dealt with on the daily.

But people randomly materializing inside his Bentley, talking his ear off and then insulting the trusty vehicle? (Dirk was, unsurprisingly, not as silent about his thoughts as he thought he'd been) that was new.

And anything new, so close to the end of the world, was terrifying.

"Not that I know of", answers Aziraphale. "Seeing as we're not even a week away from the apocalypse, it would be quite pointless, don't you think?"

"Yeah", agrees Crowley. "Heaven may be idiots, but God isn't". Aziraphale shoots him a wounded look which he pointedly ignores.

Crowley could deal with this mess himself. He always did.

...

"It should be around here". The pendulum was swinging wildly in circles again, like an excited three-year-old dragging his parent by their sleeve to show them a particularly interesting rock or a strangely shaped leaf.

"Do you happen to know what this creature", (Dirk has made a point of avoiding the word beast) "that we are looking for even looks like?"

"No idea," responds Anathema. "But I'm sure that once I see it, I'll know".

The pendulum thrusts itself against her palm, hard enough to leave a mark, just as a group of young children and an even smaller dog appear.

"Hey guys!" says Anathema, hurriedly stuffing it into her pocket, and Dirk gives a little wave. "Nice hat".

"Actually, we made it from cardboard. It's for our game." replies the frontmost girl in a bossy tone. (which was mighty high of her, thinks Anathema, considering her outfit consists of what is essentially a long sheet of plastic). (Anathema believes you could tell a great deal about a person from the way they dressed. That was the reason her closet was filled to the brim with old-fashioned dresses, and nothing more).

"Stylish", says Anathema, "What are you guys playing?"

"The British inquisition", answers another; his eyes, half hidden behind his thick-rimmed glasses, nervously darting between her and his friends. The mere sight of his visual ping-pong makes her head spin.

"Come on, Wensleydale", says the bossy one, tugging at his sleeve.

"Sounds like fun", Anathema calls, though it sounds anything but. "How does the game work?"

"I'm chief inquisitor", says a curly haired boy, who was walking a dog by a leash that seemed just a tad too short to be comfortable, both for the boy and his four-legged companion.

"Brian is a torturer, and we are trying to find a witch".

"And how does one do that?" Dirk, who was spacing out during most of the conversation, pops right in.

The kids stop their explanations to stare at his unusual attire.

"Art thou a witch, olé?" Asks the "chief inquisitor".

"I think they might both be witches". Replies the bossy one in the plastic sheet.

"Don't be ridiculous," says the curly kid that appears to be the leader, as they all, even if begrudgingly, shut up and wait for him to finish speaking. "Everyone knows witches are girls".

"But I thought I was a witch", says the witch ("Wensleydale", the bossy girl called him). "And I'm a boy".

"Yes", says the bossy one. "But you're pretending".

"Maybe they're pretending too", objected Wensleydale.

"Well, he's wearing a dress", observed the leader. "Only girls wear dresses".

"Boys can wear dresses too", sours Dirk.

"It's a girl's dress", insists the chief.

"It's MY dress", says Dirk, "so I get to decide".

"It's mine, actually". Reminds Anathema, and all six sets of eyes, including the dog's, turn to her.

...

"Crowley", says Aziraphale, a hint of polite disbelief in his tone, "Are you completely, perfectly, one hundred percent sure of what you saw?"

The kind tone might have fooled him, had it not been the third time Aziraphale had "discreetly" brought up this conversation topic, and Crowley, just as discreetly, evaded it.

"Someone suddenly materialized inside my car, pardon me for not taking pictures." Crowley spits venomously; not quite literally, though. He could, obviously, if only he had put his mind to it, but he'd gotten those lovely leather seats only six years ago (they were practically brand new!) and it would have been such a waste to dissolve them already.

"And you didn't even think to ask what business they were having in the backseat of your car?"

"I did", objects Crowley miserably. "He chattered like a nun and ran away". And I let him, he finishes silently.

"That could have been anyone", scolds Aziraphale, his white brows scrunched in agitation. "You could have been hurt!"

"And I would have… Would have had to –" He's at an actual loss for words, Crowley notes in amusement. (It was the second time something of the sort had happened. The first was in Egypt, during the time Jesus Christ was only "Jesus", and a fairly decent group of young lads made an awful lot of suggestions concerning him and their – uh, beds).

"You know I can't stop the Antichrist alone." Aziraphale manages. "So just – just try to take better care, alright?" He adds pleadingly, as if Crowley was about to leave him to fend for himself against a demonic – possibly satanic – eleven-year-old.

Crowley had really thought they were past this stage.

"It's always so nice to feel cared about, don't you think?" he says, not to let Aziraphale see how much his words stung.

"Well, we've made a deal", the angel brightens, not picking on the snide undertone. "And having you discorporated would certainly - what's that wonderful human term? -  'put a damper' on our plan".

"And your genius idea is to, what? Lecture me like some human child?" Crowley blenches, his voice maybe a little too strong to be entirely nonchalant, "like I'm some useless baby who can't go anywhere without hanging onto his daddy's suit?" he turns a sharp left, and if the trees were placed was just a tad too spaciously - well, it was not going to help Aziraphale win this argument.

"Well, newsflash, angel: You've been hanging onto MY suit for much longer than I have on yours".

As Crowley pulls into the nunnery's parking lot, Alpha Centauri feels further than ever.

...

Anathema was kind-of a witch. Anyone could become kind-of a witch. 

Given enough training and the proper equipment, any person with a beating heart and at least one hand could perform small rituals.

The main difference between occultists and witches lay in the fact, that for someone like Anathema, a simple blessing could take up to a month of preparations; while natural witches, like her great-times-seven grandma Agnes, could throw some salt, light a candle, and the room was as holy as a church - and they'd still have enough time left for a divination before breakfast.

"Is this your dog?" Dirk leans to properly pet the black and white bundle of ambiguous species that was throwing itself at his legs.

"Yes -" starts the curly boy.

"no". Interjects the plastic-sheet wearing girl.

"He is my dog", says the curly boy indignantly.

"He's A dog", corrects the 'witch'. "You just happened to find it".

"Why do you even care?" The boy, having concluded that no help was going to come from his friends, decides to turn Dirk's question back at him, like sort of a verbal Uno card.

"It's just that it's been acting rather undog-like", explains Dirk. The mutt scowls and barks, as if personally offended (which, to be fair, it had every right to be, if only it understood what they were saying) (but they were humans, and it was a dog, so it didn't).

"Dog is perfectly normal", insists the presumed owner of the dog - but not, evidently, of an impressive naming ability.

Little kids, she thinks with an air of condescension, ignoring the fact that she used to own a cat named kitty for the majority of second grade.

"You can never tell", says Dirk, with a surprisingly somber expression, "whether one is a dog inside a dog, or just a human inside some other poor animal's body".

With these words of truly unrivaled wisdom, he crouches to stare into Dog's eyes (Dog averts his gaze). "Are you a human trapped inside a Dog's body? Bark twice for 'Yes' and once for 'No'".

For a long moment there is silence, the dog looking more uncomfortable with each passing second, as does its owner.

"Well," says Anathema at last. "We should really get going. It was lovely meeting you all, but I'm gonna keep looking, so". She drags, rather than leads, Dirk away from the scene. "Bye!" he waves cheerily.

"What a weird witch", she hears one kid say, right as they round the corner.

"I thought you said she wasn't a witch!"

"Art THOU a witch, olé?

...

Amanda takes short, shallow breaths, blindly groping her pants for the small container.

There is a knife wedged in her tight. Big, pristine - apart from Amanda's blood - and unlike any of the cheap plastic crap they use for eating.

She's having an attack, obviously.

Not that acknowledging it eases any of the symptoms, but it does give her a certain sense of control.

Well, that is until she moves, and the wound burns so badly that it feels like her leg is a coconut and someone's trying to hack it open with a rusty machete.

Amanda bites her lip, bracing herself for the coolness of having the attack sucked out of her.

Several long seconds pass, but the pain in her leg doesn't subside.

"Vogel?" She asks. Maybe he didn't realize she was having an attack. "I need... I -" the knife is slick with her blood, and she loosens her grip. The edge triggers the ends of her already injured nerves, sending new jolts of pain through her spine.

"Your knife". He whispers.

"I can… I can see it".

She screams again before he finally sucks her attack out.

She has no wound, but the knife on the floor in front of her isn't made of plastic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Being a writer really is a magnificent experience. I can say shit like "the wound burns so badly that it feels like her leg is a coconut and someone's trying to hack it open with a rusty machete." and everyone is forced to act like it's poetic.  
> Also yes I totally made Crowley call Aziraphale his daddy


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Todd and Farah make some important discoveries, Crowley and Aziraphale run the bentley into some people, And Bart makes an appearence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's twice as long as the other chapters, I couldn't choose a splitting point!  
> Additional apology for taking so long on this one, I kept trying to perfect it (this is like the 20th edit)

"Dirk is in England", says Farah evenly, closing the cars door behind her slowly, as if she didn't just announce the biggest news Todd has heard in over two months.

She sets down a cup of coffee and her phone, courtesy of her trip to the local gas station's coffee shop.

It was her turn to buy groceries while Todd sat in the car with the windows shut and sunglasses pulled low on his face, feeling like an idiot and wishing he'd bought more Chips when he had the chance.

Well, bought was a broad term. "Stuffing his hands with as many bags as he could physically carry and leaving several quarters on the counter", was somewhat more like it. (Still, he could have probably fitted another bag if he had tried hard enough).

In a belated response to Farah's words, Todd makes a strangled noise at the back of his throat, violently slamming the gas. Farah scrambles to get hold of the wheel before he drives them both into a bridge - or off it, he looks open to suggestions.

The guy in the security footage was Dirk, had to be. Todd could recognize this face anywhere.

He was thinner, paler and unkempt in an aching contrast to his usually well-cared for attire; the grainy camera did little to soften those harsh truths. But it was him, nonetheless.

"Whoa, Todd, you good?", Farah asks. "Do you want me to drive?"

Todd nods, not trusting himself enough to speak.

"How do we get there?" He asks, once both are in their correct seats and he is certain his breathing has slowed down enough without triggering an attack.

"Get there?" Repeats Farah, in a tune that suggests he's saying utter bullshit that does not deserve to be repeated – and yet repeated it is. "Todd, we're two of the most wanted people on the CIA's list. We can't just book a flight".

"We could probably sneak on it. Maybe".

"And how do you suggest we do that?" She asks, wishing she could have crossed her arms indignantly above her chest too, was she not supposed to be driving.

Oops. She pulls over for the third time in four minutes. The annoyed family behind them honks their opinion on the matter before squeezing between their car and the narrow road, followed by a small convoy of cars and one motorcycle.

"Don't avoid my - are you seriously Googling this right now?" Says Farah in disbelief, eyeing Todd disapprovingly across the stirring wheel.

"No?" Responds Todd.

After a moment he sighs, "yes, but do you have any better ideas?", As he scrolls through an article about the five best ways to sneak into planes (the FBI were after them anyway; at this point he could probably Google "How to commit mass murder" and get away with it) (Well, not "get away", but not get into any more trouble than he was already in)

"Look," he says, in what he hopes is a calm and reasonable tune (but is actually anything but), "it's not like we haven't done worse".

"In the eyes of the law we haven't", reminds Farah. "There's a difference between being suspected of assisting a criminal and getting caught actually sneaking onto an international flight".

"Yes, but -" Todd objects, "if we do it right..."

Farah looks like she's already calculating the size of his straitjacket in her head.

"Just trust me on this one, okay?" he says desperately, "All we need to do is _"Read or listen to the best nonfiction books in a matter of minutes_ -"

"Wrong section, Todd". She interrupts.

"Right, yes, um _. "At a time when safety in aviation has been_ -"

"Give me that", says Farah, grabbing at his phone, though the corners of her mouth are positively higher. Todd hopes it's a smile and not an angry clench of teeth.

"I'm sure we can find a better - more legal, at least - way".

...

Anathema leaves Dirk napping on the couch - he was pretending to go over some potential leads, but given the soft snoring that resounds through the living room, she highly doubts there's much reading involved - and anyway, he deserves his sleep.

He looks like he hadn't gotten a proper rest in weeks, and while Anathema doesn't want to prod him and risk making matters worse for him – not to mention her other, entirely selfish reason of not wanting to lose the only friendship she has ever had before it even had a chance to develop – she admits she does want to know why.

As Anathema puts on her coat, she gives the unmoving bundle of pillows on her sofa another glance. She thinks about scribbling a note, but decides against it. She doesn't know what to write without sending him sprinting after her, and anyway, she would probably be back already when he wakes.

"Where are we going?" Someone taps her shoulder, barely stifling a yawn.

Dirk, of course, couldn't stay asleep when something mildly interesting in his five-mile radius was happening. (sometimes seven – it depended, mostly, on how many people the thing involved, as the more people it concerned, the less likely Dirk was to hear about it).

"WE", she says, gesturing between the two of them, "are not going anywhere. I'M gonna test a prophecy. And you", she shoves him - not particularly hard, just strong enough to get the message across, "are staying inside and getting some sleep, or so help me God, I WILL make you".

Dirk, who looks at best mildly bothered by her threat, stubbornly steps outside. "I'm going with you, and I will help you find the thing".

"How, exactly?" asks Anathema. "You're tired, you can barely do magick, and - most importantly - you don't even have a bike". She gives him an unimpressed one-over, "or were you gonna race it?"

"I thought we could share yours", says Dirk, fixing his expression into something so puppy-like she half expects him to sprout a tail, "I can squeeze myself to rather small places, I could show you if you'd like".

"There's really no need", hurries Anathema, before he can get himself stuck inside her cabinet. "But if you fall off, have fun looking for the way home yourself".

...

Turns out there isn't a better way, legal or otherwise, to cross the Atlantic. That is precisely how Todd and Farah find themselves in Seattle's international airport covered in cheap-looking Hawaiian shirts and shades so big they could be used as hats (only a slight exaggeration, and tiny hats did seem to be fashionable lately), carrying mostly empty suitcases and trying to look as inconspicuous as possible while avoiding anyone who looks like authority by a mile.

"We're not gonna make it, we're not gonna make it, we're absolutely not gonna make it…" mumbles Farah in a sort of self-deprecating mantra, chugging the remains of her lukewarm water with such ferocity the cheap plastic material crumples in her hand. She throws it at the trash, missing by a few inches, but doesn't stand to pick it up.

"Why did I say yes? Useless, useless, useless!"

"Breath", Todd says quietly, putting his hands on her shoulders as if initiating a hug. "The security at the wending machine is listening to us. Like, eavesdropping-listening."

Farah leans into the touch and spares a glance in the direction.

There really is - quite obviously staring, as well - a guard standing by the machine.

"Just go along with it", she whispers to Todd, bringing her arms closer still. "Go along? Go along with –"

"I'm gonna be an awful mom!" She exclaims loudly.

"I can't even cook, and look at me", she gestures at herself in an overly grand motion, "There's nowhere to put the baby!"

Several heads turn to frown at the commotion, including the guards.

"You're – no, I'm sure it'll fit", Todd hastily joins on the charade. "and you can always take a class –"

"So what you're saying", Farah recoils, raising her voice just a bit above what is universally considered polite, "is that I'm fat".

"No – no, I didn't say anything like… That".

"That's enough, I think", whispers Farah, and loudly finishes, "This conversation is so not over".

The guard turns away, clearly uncomfortable. Farah sighs.

"So where to now?"

...

"Darksome night and shining moon", Anathema recites cheerfully as she readjusts her Sextant. "come on…"

"Did you find anything?" Dirk asks from his seat, at the uncomfortable base of a nearby tree. ("This is such a boring forest", he'd noted a couple of minutes before. "It's like someone took one tree that was not particularly interesting on its own, and pasted it hundreds of times to make an even lamer forest").

"Fun, huh?" says Anathema smugly, and Dirk replies with "Not particularly, no".

She scrolls through the map on her tablet. The writing was smudged and wrinkled with time, making it unreadable in some places.

She could have used a navigation app, but Anathema always felt that they never quite gave her the desirable result; her love for getting lost in the woods was made a lot harder a task with a map whose only goal was to keep her on the right track.

Despite it being a fairly bright night, the moon was still insistently out of sight. As if it's playing hide and seek with the earth, Anathema thinks, with her and the sextant in the role of seekers.

She jots it down in her notebook and continues adjusting her equipment, just to give her hands something to do while her mind pondered her next course of action.

Fiddling with the arc, she notices the moon has shifted, hovering above the northern part of town, somewhere between Hogback lane and Briarwood Meadow.

"Let's go". She grins like a Cheshire cat, pulling Dirk to his feet.

Anathema has never understood that phrase. A human couldn't possibly smile like a feline.

Now, however, she thinks she finally gets it. There is nothing quite as satisfying as finding the prey you've spent hours hunting, knowing it has nowhere to turn.

"Where?" Dirk asks blearily.

"To finally catch the damn thing".

They both can't help but break into a smile.

…

"Last thing we need right now is -" Crowley turns to Aziraphale, fully intending to finish with a snide comment about the uselessness of romance, before something very heavy, and immediately also very loud, crashes into his car.

Well, turns out the actual last thing they need is a car accident.

But car accidents, just like love, tend to happen when you least expect them, and leave a similar impact on your car (angry, horny and heartbroken twenty-first century teenagers were not to be taken lightly, Crowley has learned the hard way).

There is a long moment of silence, where they both stare at Crowley's handiwork, before Aziraphale says quietly in a high-pitched voice - as if that would make the situation less real somehow - "you hit someone".

"I didn't", Crowley feigns nonchalance, (his reputation as a cold-hearted bastard was already quite badly damaged, and he fears any more blows will turn up fatal) "somebody hit me".

Aziraphale gives him a hard look before throwing open the door and jumping out.

Crowley takes a moment or two for a quiet but efficient curse - someone was about to have a VERY nasty Tuesday - before climbing after his angel and pretending to care.

Two bodies lay twisted on the forest floor – not bodies, but people, Crowley reminds himself; they're still breathing. He did not just run over two civilians with Aziraphale in the car.

Not that Crowley had much trouble with the concept of killing; it was a temporary state, after all. Just something that happened to your corporeal body before your soul was sent up or down the stairs.

But even for someone as soulless as Crowley liked to believe he was, there was a difference between giving someone a gun and actually pulling the trigger.

Aziraphale, ever the caring soul, has already miracled a light above their heads.

One of the persons moves; a girl no older than twenty (though with all plastic surgery options nowadays, who could really tell) Twitches and groans, "how the hell did you do that?"

Crowley immediately flicks the unnecessary light off. (One perk of being a demon was the night vision).

"You can't - you can't just pretend 't wasn't there", mumbles the second. Crowley can't make out their features from the direction they're facing.

"I can and I just did", Crowley wants to say, but that will ruin the whole point of pretending it didn't happen, so he shuts his mouth and makes a mental note to tell it to Aziraphale later.

"We've seen it already. Now you've just gone and made it more suspicious, because you could have pretended there was a streetlamp here - I don't see why they would put a streetlight in the middle of a forest, but that would have been more inconspicuous than a giant cloud of light".

"Dirk, shut up." The girl hisses. "Eighty percent of my body is in pain right now and I really don't wanna add my head to that list".

"Thank you, dear", says Aziraphale, miraculously mending the bones in the first girl's broken arm. (Crowley hopes the miracle was clear to him simply because he knew Aziraphale so well, and not because the angel was being inconspicuous).

"But you don't seem to be hurt that badly, no bones broken". (There is a second cracking sound, indicating that there were, actually, quite a few bones broken. There weren't any now).

He moves on to "Dirk", who seems more than a bit concussed, and once Crowley establishes his help is not needed - not that he was planning to offer any, but just in case - miracling his front light whole instead. It was rather soothing, the feeling of the fibers and the metals coming together as clearly as if he'd done it with his own two hands.

"My bike!" The girl realizes, wobbling in her place as she tries to sit upright.

A very distinct sound of untwisting metals resounds through the forest.

Crowley groans. Was the angel not even trying to hide it?

"Surprisingly resilient, these old machines", smiles Aziraphale. "Where do you need to get to?"

"No, NO, we're not giving them a lift", shudders Crowley.

He's had enough strangers in his car today to host a party, and he doesn't even like guests. (quite a miserable party they would have made, but a party nonetheless).

"Out of the question. There's nowhere to put the bike".

"Except for the bike ramp, of course", Aziraphale smiles, giving Crowley a meaningful look.

The demon looks to the back of his car that was already sporting a new ramp, looking as if it were always a part of his trunk, (but wasn't, of course. No one made bike ramps in the forties).

"Do get in, dears", says Aziraphale, smiling his sunshine-and-rainbows smile and looking so absurdly content that Crowley simply couldn't object (the angel did it on purpose, of course. He was not as oblivious to Crowley's inner turmoil as Crowley thought he was, which tended to come in handy).

"So, where are we taking you?" Asks Crowley, pronouncing each word with as much bite as he could (considering he was a demon, the amount was quite a large one).

"Back to the village", replies the girl curtly, and the guy joins her wordlessly; probably still following her order to shut up.

"I'll give you directions".

Crowley can't help but grimace as he closes the Bentley's door behind them.

...

Anathema's request to shut up has only been in motion for about three minutes, and Dirk already feels like he's about to explode.

The nice white-haired man has calmed down the less-than-nice man. They make quite a couple, Dirk thinks airily, even if the less-than-nice man has such a terrible fashion sense (even worse than Anathema's).

He was, for whatever reason, wearing sunglasses at night - what a weird guy, Dirk thinks, I used to know a guy like that. (Only he's not sure from where, and that bothers him, so he stops bugging his brain to find out).

The car has started blasting Queen songs the moment they came in, as if it couldn't wait for them to finally turn it on. Dirk thinks it's a cool gadget, and a really nice car - one of the nicest he's ever been in, actually, second only to the jeep he and Todd stole during the memorable treasure hunt.

Thinking about Todd makes him sad, so he doesn't think about that either.

Anathema on the other hand looks anything but airy. She keeps glancing between the guys at the front and the window at her side, as if calculating how hard the fall would be if she were to jump out the car that very moment.

Dirk turns to the front as well, choosing to examine the mirror instead – it was, as he had once told Todd, that he couldn't see what was happening behind him while he was looking forward, that had driven him to that strange action - and there he sees a problem, perhaps even two: at the back rests a two seated bike, similar to Anathema's own in every way – except the number of seats, which had somehow doubled.

"Hey", Dirk finally breaks the silence, "if you had a second seat all along, why did you make me share one with you?"

Anathema whips her head around in a speed akin to a ball-jointed doll or a possessed child in second-grade horror movie.

"I don't", she says, after confirming that yes, it was her bike that had sprouted an additional seat.

Clearly having intended to whisper in Dirk's ear but failing by at least two octaves, she says, "my bike didn't have two seats. I know my bike didn't have two seats".

She stares at the driver intently. "Make a left".

"Oh Lord, heal this bike", croons the sunglasses-wearing driver in a sing-song tone - if church hymns were considered songs, that is - and something clicks in Dirk's brain.

"Stop the car!" He shouts.

 The car screeches, coming to a halt.

"You!" Snarls the glasses wearing man, somehow packing every curse word in existence into one small, single-syllabled package.

"Me?" Dirk stutters in confusion, before crying "Me!" Again, in a tune that means something else entirely.

"Dirk, what the hell?" Anathema curses, trying to grab at his wrist and force him into slowing down his frantic attempts at undoing his seatbelt.

"I know you", Dirk says, ignoring her, "You're the guy from this morning, the one with the narrow doors! Quite a stupid design choice, if you ask me – nowhere to properly place your legs on the way out - and those sunglasses are - oh", says Dirk, "I think we oughta leave now".

He grabs Anathema's hand and throws open the stupidly narrow door.

Before the red-haired man can react, they're gone.

...

"What the hell was that?" Demands Anathema, marching heavily alongside Dirk, packing as much annoyance in her step as humanly possible.

They were originally dropped off an eight-minute walk away from the cottage, but Dirk had insisted on walking through the woods for coverage. His dress was enough of a camouflage as is, blending perfectly with the dark blues and blacks of the sky, but he thought he'd rather be safe than sorry.

"It's a long story", Dirk tries to evade the topic.  "are you sure you want to hear it?"

"Well, seeing as we're lost in the woods, I think we've got time". She starts, before crying out with an appropriate amount of horror - "My bike!", for the second time that evening.

Her hands find her hips, and rest there warningly. "You better tell me everything, or I swear to God -"

"Fine, but it's a really long one, and it might get more than a bit complicated –"

"Go".

Dirk does.

...

"Crowley, dear", starts Aziraphale tentatively, "what did you do to them?"

"Nothing", answers Crowley, and turns on another of his endless Queen albums. "That's the problem".

...

"Hello, little sister", two red heads stare at each other.

One rests on a motorcycle, the epitome of elegance.

The other leans on a bicycle, the embodiment of trouble.

The shorter grins, her teeth white and perfect, like every part of her. So white and so, so perfect, it is almost disturbing.

The taller frowns, her face stained with grime and blood. Her hair is greasy and unkempt, her clothes ragged and dirty, like every other part of her.

"Sister?" She repeats, her frown deepening into a scowl. "I don't have a sister".

"You do", the shorter, smiling still, extends a hand. "Vengeance".


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the four horsemen are met; but only through narration, Todd and Farah finally board a plane, and Amanda's strange happenings continue to get stranger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for disappearing for so long, this little chapter waited in my drafts for months before I finally realized how to say what I wanted to. I am, however, very excited about this project, and the next one should be up sometimes in the next week!

"The four horsemen" was not a name they chose, nor was it given to them; it was a name they had eventually came to accept as their own. Humans were plenty bad at tracking and making connections that preceded their laughable length of life; it was better for both parties for it to stay that way,

The four horsemen liked to make a point out of being vastly - on the verge of undeniably - separate from humans; but the simple fact was, they needed them to thrive.

No War could be born without something to gain; wars were always about the tomorrow or the yesterday, rarely about the now; and while animals lived and died in the now, it was the humans who made War. They shaped it to what it was, then worshiped her like a goddess.

Pollution, too, was born from humans; from the oil spilling into the oceans and stinking the air, from the rise in temperatures and acidic rain. They were young, but wouldn't always stay that way.

Hunger, while no stranger to animals, was never big, it was never a true _famine_  ; when animals didn't have what to eat they died, one by one, feeding others. They never stayed truly hungry for long. 

Another thing animals lacked was a sense of death. Animals felt pain, they experienced caution - but not the one thing that always followed. Humans gave Death his name; and by that, finally acknowledged that he was.

Vengeance was no different.

Animals weren't smart enough, _cruel_ enough, to differentiate between hunger for food and hunger for justice. If a wolf killed a rabbit, the family fled; it did not stick around to make the wolf's life miserable.

Humans, on the other hand, loved nothing more than a gun in their hands and a reason to push the trigger. They loved the sense of righteousness, the superiority that bringing "justice" gave them.

They named it Vengeance; to justify it in front of themselves as well as in front of all else. But really, it was blood-lust in beautiful wrappers.

And yet Vengeance was also different; never raised to despise her name, to hate her humanity.

It was a safety blanket of sorts; a last minute trick, not unlike magicians who resort to pulling endless tissues out their pockets when they realized the rabbit has already escaped. 

Perhaps it was, really, merely God's idea; she was hoping for the youngest sister – by association, of course, seeing as they were all born of different mothers (if at all) – to calm her older siblings into obedience.

Perhaps it was that Vengeance never knew better, but to call her humanity anything but her own gifted name. And what a wonderful name it was, really; Bart Curlish. Undeniably human, because that was all she ever came to be.

…

Farah taps her fingers on the seat, hard. One-two-three, one-two-three - she notes a chipped nail and resists the urge to bite it in her restless state by shoving it into her balled fists into her hoodie.

She can still feel it through her pointed ignorance, imagines tiny silicone fibers getting trapped between her skin and nail, and shudders. She makes a note to buy a nail-clipper when – because it's a _when_ situation, not an _if_ \- they reach England.

Todd, meanwhile, scours the room in search of a distraction.

Not something big enough for the airport to be shut down, but enough to shake the receptionist so that they don't notice that Farah's ID says she is married to Todd while Todd's says he's proudly single. (On every other aspect, though, for something created in the MS paint equal of forging document apps – who knew these existed? Certainly not Farah - and printed in an equally shitty printer, Farah thinks they did quite well).

A family, the perfect combination for chaos nears the register; the pair straighten up, ready to slip after them.

An expensively dressed man carrying a black suitcase cuts them in what Farah might've described as a powerwalk, had it not been for the fact that important businessmen simply didn't walk that way.

The man comes to a stand behind their cover, thoroughly ruining it. Still, they join the line, sending each other telepathic helpless stares (or literal ones, in Todd's case. His psychic powers still need some polishing).

The kids are surprisingly well behaved, so they wouldn't have made a good distraction anyway.

The family takes their passports and leaves, and the woman at the neatly arranged desk sighs her acknowledgment of the – yep, defiantly powerwalking – businessman.

In a bored voice and a smile that looks like she's dying to get out of there already and go get drunk somewhere, despite every good place being closed at this time of night, she asks "Passport?"

The man slides it to her wordlessly.

"F. Amine?" she reads, and he gives her a nod. The name sounds familiar, but Farah can't for the life of her place it.

"What does the F stand for?"

"It's just an F", says the man curtly, nodding towards her hands, still gripping his passport a good seven or eight inches from the scanner. She makes no attempt to change their placement.

"It must mean something!" she exclaims.  "You can't just walk around without a proper first name".

"Clearly hasn't stopped me this far", he smiles sweetly; his teeth are uncannily long in the reflection, reminding Farah disturbingly of whale teeth – balloons, or baleen or the likes – before he speaks again.

"Well, I think we're done here." He says, his irritation clear in the clench of his shoulders beneath the expensive suit.

She reluctantly hands him back his passport, "Certainly, certainly. Have a nice trip!"

The receptionist then barely skims Todd and Farah's fake passports, not daring to point out any weird, mismatching details, clearly not wanting to cause another delay to the enormous line. (seriously, thinks Farah, where did all these people come from?)

"Here you go", the woman says, her face set in what is not quite a smile, "Enjoy your flight!"

"We will", Todd assures her.

They pile their suitcases in some empty bathroom stall, and Farah tries not to feel too guilty for the overtime they're going to make some poor bomb disposal technician work, while Todd asks again, for good measure, "Are you sure they're not going to ask for a passport?"

"It was your idea", reminds Farah, "we can just hope whoever wrote that article wasn't an undercover cop".

…

They do not ask to see a passport during scanning, though an eyebrow or two are raised at their lack of luggage. Soon enough, those eyes turn to the name-less gentlemen from passport check, who gets into an argument with the security over his suitcase, which is, apparently, empty.

"It's _not_ empty, you idiots!" Farah hears him spit. His accent is unlike any she has ever heard before.

"Then open it", growls the security guard in frustration.

"I can't!" The man says, his anger matching the guard's frustration. "The air will spread, and it's expensive".

"Request backup", says the guard into his walkie-talkie. "We're dealing with a lunatic, and potentially dangerous gases".

"I demand you call my lawyer", the man screams, and all heads – at least, the ones who weren't staring already -  turn to him.

Todd quietly grabs Farah's wrist and tugs her through the unguarded gate.

…

Amanda hugs her knees tighter to her chest, watching the streetlights illuminating Vogel's face, and the strange pile of objects on the wall behind them.

There is a knife; the one from a week ago.

Next to it is an impressively long string of wire that gave you electric shocks when you touched it, despite not being connected to anything.

A fully sized beartrap rests next to it, thankfully closed, rusty and generally unusable (though the day it materialized itself on Amanda's foot, it was very much everything but).

There had also been a snake, but after deciding that neither had the money nor the skills – nor in Vogel's case, the heart – to capture rodents for it, it slipped away.

Amanda hopes it found a good home, but she knows that, most likely, its body is rotting on some major highway, being ran over and over by drivers who all hope the next it line would be the one to call 911 on it.

(That, she does not tell Vogel).

Currently, a blanket is wrapped around her shoulders to stop her shivering from the remains of the latest attack – drowning, how original – and wonders, defeatedly, not why, or how; but simply, how does she get it to STOP?

With shaky hands, she slides open her phone. Her fingers slowly tap a number that had been, up until two months ago, on the top of her contact list.

…

Todd's phone rings silently in his back packet, masked by a layer of jeans and jumpy nervousness.

Todd has a lot to be nervous about. Admittedly, the hardest part is behind them – even Farah, the worrywart she is, has to admit it.

But so much can still go wrong.

If they decide to do a second headcount; if someone notices the seats that were supposed to be empty haven't stayed that way; if they somehow got on the wrong flight…

Todd shakes his head and closes his eyes, forces himself to doze off on the waves of wobbliness from his sensory-overload medication. (It was difficult enough to get one of those without prescription; and buying a specific medication for a disease that only seven other people in the world had, was essentially like holding up a giant, neon sign that said "come get me, I'm right here!", and also shared its own GPS coordinates).

The phone vibrates one last time, before going silent.

…

This time, the receptionist has resorted to silently staring at the man in the expensive suit, who is yet again ahead of them in line. How does he keep doing that? wonders Farah. Isn't the airport security even remotely concerned about him?

He's yelling into his phone, something slick and so expensive that Farah – pre generous donation from Lydia, bless her bank account - would have probably had to sell her first-born in order to afford.

Broken bits of an argument reach her ears; something about broken engines, first-class departments - and the apocalypse.

Farah has very little ideas as to how the three could possibly connect. (And that's coming from a woman whose employer, according to said employer's assistant, makes a puzzle out of the morning papers).

"What do you mean you _can't_ let me onto first class? Do you have ANY IDEA who I am?" the man demands of the receptionist, whose only fault was doing his - albeit shitty - job.

The receptionist shakes his head slowly, looking as if one wrong move might send it rolling to the ground. The man's teeth do seem more than capable of making that happen. "Sir, uh - Sir. I need you to calm down…"

"I'm F. Amine, renowned author and recently, head of Chow. I do NOT sit in third class".

"You're the guy behind that new fast food chain?" the receptionist brightens; mistakenly trying to strike a conversation.

Farah makes a mental note to never go there, ever.

"It's not food", the man spits, something between a groan and a growl. "It's CHOW".

It takes about three more minutes of banter before the man finally leaves poor Dave - yes, Farah actually reads name tags, it's _polite_ \- looking shaken and wishing he was never born.

That must have been a traumatizing enough experience, but Farah can't bring herself to feel properly sorry for him; he's confused enough to forget to check Todd and her tickets when they pass.

They're a good few feet away when he finally realizes his mistake, but all it takes is for Farah to say  "You ringed us already", and Todd managing a cool "Should you get your memory checked?", and the guy's too terrified to do anything but register the next passenger.

Farah thanks god for bureaucracy and sits down in an empty seat.

When a flight attendant comes closer, Todd, who thankfully remembers the tips about avoiding the headcount in time, quietly pulls Farah's arm, and they disappear in a bathroom stall.

The place is cramped, smelly and highly unsanitary, but when they come out for the last buckle alert, trying to ignore the stares of the passengers around them (yes, she knows what kind of impression that little performance gave off. She may be terrible at social cues, but not DIRK-terrible), all stewardesses have vanished into thin air - or wherever it is that flight attendants go when they aren't serving food or catching Infiltrators.

Todd sits down next to her in an empty seat, popping another pill (just in case. He hasn't been on planes since the Pararibulitis happened, and they agreed that better wobbly but safe than sorry).

As they take off, Farah can't help but wonder if, somehow, a small part of Dirk's universal guidance rubbed off on the two of them; if they were finally being led to the right place.

For the first time in two months, she lets herself _be_ hopeful.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some people get some answers, and someone finally answers Amanda's calls

The call goes to voicemail.

It shouldn't be this much of a surprise, thinks Amanda. They haven't spoken in over a month.

She doesn't even know if Todd still owns the same phone.

Probably not - it would be too easy for the CIA to track down a regularly used phone; maybe they use burners.

Farah is a bodyguard. She probably has a few lying around.

Maybe Amanda should get a burner too; the CIA could track her phone just as easily, and she used to call Todd daily.

Maybe not; that's his problem now.

She ends the call, realizing, belatedly, that she had just sent Todd some long seconds worth of breathing for a voicemail, and scrolls through her contacts, looking for a number her mother had added when she had her first Pararibulitis attack.

She swore her to never call it unless things went bad. As in, somehow worse than getting knocked down by a gust of wind. "If things get too real, call them". She said. "If it ever gets that bad, they're the only ones who'll know how to help".

Her mother never explained what "too real" meant, and eighteen-year-old Amanda, who couldn't possibly imagine a fate worse than the one she was currently facing, never asked.

Well, things can't get much realer than this, thirty-odd years old Amanda thinks.

Her phone rings twice; someone picks it upon the third ring.

…

"So the universe tells you what to do?" Anathema asks, her hand curled protectively around a mug of hot cocoa with extra sugar, that she feels particularly deserving of.

The crazy rollercoaster that was Dirk's life still flashing through her mind, she tries to make sense of what she had just heard; asking questions while Dirk talked was impossible. He either spurred into completely unrelated stories, which ended only when a different one came to his mind, or was so immersed in his own story, he couldn't even hear her.

"Yes". Dirk answers, his hand tightening around the heart-shaped handle of his own cocoa. She gave him her favorite mug in a random spur of generosity that now seemed wasted, given the mostly full state of it.

"I know it’s hard to believe, but it's real. I solved cases. Many cases – well, some cases. And I'm going to solve this one, too". He takes a sip of his cocoa before twisting his face in a grimace. "What's in this, sand?"

She bites down a snarky reply; maybe something along the lines of not remembering hearing him ask for sugar, or a simple yes – and asks instead, "And how does it work"?

"Well", his brows scrunch in thought, as if trying to find a way to explain the color blue to the blind, "sometimes I just feel that I need to go somewhere, and I get sick if I don't..."

"Rather nasty thing, this sickness stuff, because then I can't go anywhere, and then I get even sicker and then – well, you get the point.

Other times it's like… like there's this lady who tells me things, but they make sense even rarer than I do, so". He shrugs in the universal motion of 'I'm fucked either way', which looks just like regular shrug but with existential crisis.

"She – the lady, I mean – sounds, kind of, like the mom from Moonrise kingdom," he adds, brightening.

Anathema is polite enough to pretend she has heard of this band.

"And you can't just… say no?"

"I JUST told you, I get sick if I don't. Maybe worse, I never tried", he shudders, and sips his sand-tasting cocoa.

"Isn't it tiring?" she asks sympathetically. "Getting pushed around all the time like that, I mean".

"You get used to it. Not everyone I meet is bad".

"But some of them are".

"Yeah", he agrees. With a soft smile that looks out of place in the conversation he continues, "But some aren't".

They sit in silence, interrupted only by the sound of drinking.

"How is that any different from doing everything some old woman from three hundred years ago told you to do?" Dirk asks suddenly.

"It's –" not the same, Anathema wants to protest, but when she thinks about it, really thinks about it, she can't come up with a single good response.

"It just is".

Anathema's phone rings.

She's sitting on her smartphone, so it takes her a moment to register that the sound is coming from the landline in the kitchen. Which is weird, considering the only two people who know she lives here are: her mom, who has her personal number and uses it; more often than Anathema would like. And Dirk, who doesn't even own a shirt, much less a phone.

Besides, she only installed the phone yesterday; didn't these things need time to adjust?

Anathema held the strong belief that Phones, much like grass, needed time to grow into the existing network before you could step on them. (Well, she doesn't really believe that _grass_ needs any adjustment. It's just a prissy little plant).

Nonetheless, she picks up the phone, Dirk tailing her curiously.

"Hello?" says the voice on the other side. "It's me, Amanda Brotzman. I need your help".

...

"So you're my sister?" muses Bart through a mouthful of cheeseburger. A piece shoots out of her mouth, landing mere inches from War's elegant biker gear.

"Yes", says War, and gracefully takes a bite of her burger, leaving a perfect, half-circled hole in the bun. Her teeth must be razor sharp, thinks Bart with envy. If Bart had razor sharp teeth, she would never need to bother with sticks and machetes.

She would probably bite off her own tongue in a week, though.

"And I have more sisters?" Asks Bart. She always wanted a little sister; little sisters wore pink and had long, blond hair and looked like princesses. Little sisters were the kind of people that "Commercials" was made for.

"More siblings", corrects War. Bart doesn't know that word.

"But they're no closer to you than I am".

Bart considers it for a moment. "Are they like us?"

"Yes, and no. Death is like no one you'll ever meet. But that's true about all of us, I suppose". She has the prettiest, coldest smile Bart has ever seen.

"I wonder why she chose to wake you now, Vengeance. So close to the end of it all".

"She?" Asks Bart, frowning. "I don't know a 'she'".

"No", chuckles her sister (HER SISTER!). "The lady in heaven, God, whatever it is you choose to call her."  

"Why you were born here, right now. So close to the end".

"I'm not Vengeance", says Bart, though the name rings somewhat better than "Marzanna" and "Psycho". "I'm Bart."

"Is that what they called you?" Inquires War. Bart doesn't need to ask in order to know who _they_ are.

"No. I chose it."

"Why?"

"Everyone's got one. Even Dirk Gently". She frowns. She never really thought to look for a reason. She always did whatever she felt like doing; and that just felt like the right thing to do that moment.

"I also", she waves the greasy wrapper, struggling to find her words. "I wanted one too".

"Who's Dirk?" Asks War.

"He's like me", says Bart. After a thought, she adds, "you're like me. Is he my brother too?"

"Yours, maybe." says War. "But not mine".

"Get up", she stands abruptly, throwing the wrapper at the nearby can. There's a loud hissing. After a few seconds a cat jumps out, his bloodied ear hanging by a thread. War smiles sweetly at the sight; like it's a baby.

All babies are ugly in Bart's eyes, but this one in particular.

"We leave for London in a few hours; I'm taking you with me. There are some people you should meet".

...

"Amanda?" Dirk cries excitedly, and Anathema winces. He's standing far too close to her ear for that sort of thing.

"Dirk?" The surprise in the voice is replaced by delight, followed by confusion. "What are you doing there, who's phone number is this?"

"Mine", Anathema says, mouthing Dirk a desperate "do you know her?"

"Are you Imogen Device?" asks the girl.

"No", answers Anathema. "That's my mom. I'm Anathema".

"My mom, she... She told me to call this number if my attacks got…", 'Amanda' takes a deep breath to calm herself, possibly mastering her courage, "worse".

"What attacks?", Anathema rubs her forehead and sends Dirk desperate glances which he, conveniently, doesn't see.

"I have a rare – condition."

"Pararibulitis", Dirk supplies; the name isn't familiar to Anathema.

"My mind misinterprets sensory triggers, creating illusions that feel very real, and are usually very painful. They're not – they're not normal illusions. I don't just see things; I _feel_ them."

She sounds like she has repeated these exact lines hundreds of times before. Maybe she has.

"The things in my illusions, they... they're starting to become real".

"Real in what way?"

"I had a knife stuck in my leg a week ago, and it's still here. I had a beartrap snap around my leg and my leg is fine, _it's perfectly fine_ ; but the trap still exists."

"And I KNOW they were attacks", she adds, before Anathema can say anything, "because no one drives around with a butcher's knife and a giant metal trap just for the sake of it. I know we definitely didn't".

Anathema mentally goes through anything her mother has ever taught her.

"You're a witch", she say, at last. "I think 'congratulations' might be in due?"

There's a beat, a moment of stunned silence.

Then, there's a laugh.

"No way", says Amanda; not like "Oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm going to Hogwarts!". More like "You're a lunatic and witches don't exist".

"I don't even like cats!"

("Anathema doesn't own any cats either", quips Dirk.

"You can't own a cat", says Anathema, fixing her glasses with a suffering sigh. "They own you".

"Uhm", Amanda coughs into her phone, "Can we go back to me and my crisis now?"

Anathema nods, before remembering Amanda couldn't see her. "Yeah, sure".)

"What do you mean a WITCH?"

"Moving stuff with your mind, talking with ghosts. You know, the usual Hollywood crap."

"There's nothing usual about this!" Amanda cries. She sounds hysterical. "No one can talk to ghosts. Ghosts don't even exist!"

"They do", Anathema says.

"No. You're crazy. I - I don't know why I called you. This was a mistake".

"Wait, Amanda!" Dirk intervenes. "She's the real deal. She found a giant monster with only a pedal!"

"Pendulum" corrects Anathema. She doesn't feel overly compelled to correct his other statement.

"And she has a book of prophecies! That actually come true!"

"Dirk -"

"No, listen to me". He say, with every ounce of authority he can manage. He looks funny, with his cocoa moustache and black dress, clutching a yellow phone cable like his life depends on it.

Amanda, of course, can't see him, so she shuts up and listens.

"You have these... Magical powers, and an ACTUAL WITCH offers to teach you how to use them. And you say no because what? Ghosts aren't real? You live with bloody VAMPIRES; I think you should take the chance".

He hands the phone back to Anathema with a bashful expression and Rosy cheeks, looking like every drop of aggression in his body has left to live in that little speech.

"Right, um", Amanda stammers. "Okay. How do we start?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was my sister's birthday, so I did the only logical thing i could possibly do: locked myself inside and finished editing this chapter


End file.
